Eighty-five years ago, the Navy's first underwater
disaster occurred when the submarine F-4 exploded and sank off Honolulu
Harbor. This summer, the headstone marking the common grave of 17 sailors
from the F-4 will be destroyed unless a new site for it is found in Hawaii.

F-4 was one of the first submarines assigned
to the new naval facility at Pearl Harbor in the years prior to World War
I. On March 25, 1915, the submarine vanished on routine patrol, and was
later discovered a mile off Fort Armstrong, 300 feet underwater.

No one had ever salvaged a vessel from such
a depth before, and Navy attempts proved fruitless for several months.
One diver was later awarded the Medal of Honor for rescuing another diver
at the crushing depths. Finally, using specially constructed pontoons,
the submarine was raised on August 31, 1915 and towed to Pearl Harbor.

Under
Arlington National Cemetery rules, this headstoneis
headed for the rock crusher after it is replaced.

After so many months underwater, only four
of the 21 dead aboard the submarine could be identified. The 17 remaining
bodies were sealed in four caskets and shipped to Arlington National Cemetery,
where they were buried in a common grave. The headstone, the size of an
individual marker, is marked simply "17 Unknown U.S. Sailors Victims of
the USS F-4 March 25 1915."

United States Submarine Veterans Inc. convinced
Arlington to replace the simple headstone with a more appropriate group
headstone, which will occur later this summer. But to the horror of one
of the group's officials, Richard Mendelson, who spearheaded the campaign,
cemetery rules are strict about the disposition of old headstones -- they
are sent to the rock crusher and destroyed.

"The idea is because people were stealing headstones
and using them as paving stones and coffee tables and whatnot," said Mendelson
from Virginia. "But this stone is a historic artifact itself, and should
really be placed in Hawaii."

Mendelson met with Arlington supervisor John
Metzler and historian Thomas Sherlock last Friday and the cemetery officials
were sympathetic but firm. A loophole emerged, however: The stones can
be transferred to another government facility.

"I immediately thought of the Punchbowl cemetery,
and the Submarine Base, and the Bowfin Museum. It's particularly appropriate
because this year is the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Navy's submarine
service," said Mendelson.

The headstone is fairly small, a standardized
individual marker that Arlington's own quarry still makes at the rate or
25 to 30 a day. "It's so small it took us a year to find it in Arlington,"
chuckled Mendelson.

The USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park
has already written Metzler, requesting that the headstone be spared destruction
and placed under the museum's care. The museum, a private organization
on Navy property, already has exhibits and archives on the fate of the
F-4.

Executive Director Gerald Hofwolt concludes
in his letter that Bowfin will be unveiling a plaque on June 30 dedicated
to submarine crews lost prior to World War II, and that "in this centennial
year of the U.S. Submarine Force, I can think of no more fitting gesture
of support than to honor the gallant men of the earliest days of submarine
warfare by appropriate display of the headstone of the USS F-4 in a memorial
setting."

Punchbowl National Memorial Cemetery's Alan
Sumitomo, support-services supervisor, said there is likely not a proper
location in the cemetery.

"All of our headstones actually mark gravesites,"
he said, and confirmed that the rock-crushing rule applies to all national
cemeteries. "Otherwise, you'll see headstones in people's yards."

"Ironically, we're just about to start quite
a lot of maintenance on the Sierra 14 pier, where there's a plaque commemorating
the F-4," said Werner.

Alongside or beneath the submarine base pier
is the last known resting place of the F-4. Refloated by the Navy in 1915,
it was used as a harbor marker until 1940, when the Navy scuttled the hull
to make way for new construction. Periodically since, the Navy has announced
plans to either destroy or examine the F-4 -- the oldest surviving U.S.
Navy submarine -- but because of the deep silt in Pearl Harbor, the exact
location is unknown.

The Navy submarine F-4,
at right, in an undated historical photo.Courtesy of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin:
2 October 2000

Rock of ages will rest in islesA headstone that marked the graves of 17 men
of a submarine lost off Oahu 85 years ago is rescued
for Hawaii

At one point, Richard Mendelson got so frustrated
with Washington bureaucracy that he dumped a stack of letters on an official's
desk and said, "Here! You'll have to answer to all these people why you're
not doing the right thing."

All Mendelson was trying to do was save a piece
of quarry stone.

This piece, however, was the headstone for
17 crew members of the submarine F-4, lost off Honolulu 85 years ago. Mendelson
and the Washington, D.C., chapter of U.S. Submarine Veterans Inc. became
interested in the saga of the F-4 a couple of years ago and tracked down
the crew's mass grave in Arlington National Cemetery. They were appalled
to discover a tiny stone, sized for an individual grave.

Last month, after agitation from the submarine
vets, Arlington installed a properly sized joint headstone. The old headstone,
which marked the resting place of the first U.S. Navy sailors lost in a
submarine, was delivered yesterday to the USS Bowfin Museum at Pearl Harbor.

It is the only one ever transferred from a
national cemetery. Federal rules mandate headstones must be crushed into
rubble when they are recycled.

In a brief ceremony at the Bowfin's memorial
to submarines lost in action, museum director Jerry Hofwolt noted that
"this hallowed ground is an appropriate place to transfer the headstone
from Arlington ... it's particularly appropriate, given the recent circumstances
in the Bering Sea. To the families of the F-4 crew, their loss was just as heartbreaking."

Mendelson said the key to having a new headstone
created was providing a list of the "unknown" crew to Arlington. "We found
the information at the National Archives in about two minutes. We then
started writing letters to people with the same names all over the country,
and now we've tracked down about 40 descendants of the F-4 crew."

Since the museum is on Navy property, Arlington
agreed to the transfer, and released the stone to Mendelson, who was designated
the Bowfin's agent in the transfer.

The next trick was shipping the stone slab,
which weighs several hundred pounds. "The government wouldn't ship it,"
said Mendelson. "So I posted a query on a Navy Internet group and within
24 hours got a Navy OK to ship it via FedEx."

Other submarine veterans donated dollars to
fly him out here with the stone.

The shipping cost was $245. Mendelson was temporarily
taken aback at the FedEx office in Washington when he was asked how much
to insure it for. "How much are 17 lives worth?" he wondered.

NOTE: See associated story about Frank
W. Crilley who earned the Medal of Honor in connection with salvage
operations of the F-4.
Posted:
28 March 2001 Updated: 2 Janaury 2002 Updated: 11 January 2004